


In Your Soul, I'm Standing By

by GingerAle3



Series: AroAceing the Line [4]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: AroAceing the Line 2021, Aromantic Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Insomnia, Oscar Wilde Is Fine (Rusty Quill Gaming), Panic Attacks, Platonic Soulmate AU (kind of?), discussion of Sasha's fate, friendship focus, implied Aromantic Sasha Racket, internalised arophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29705244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerAle3/pseuds/GingerAle3
Summary: It was a universal thing, seemingly shared by all sentient beings. From the smallest halfling to the tallest orc, everyone left a trail of petals in their wake.To tell the honest truth, Oscar Wilde did not like it one bit.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Series: AroAceing the Line [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177172
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26
Collections: AroAceing the Line





	In Your Soul, I'm Standing By

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AroAceing the Line event on tumblr.  
> (@aroaceingtheline)
> 
> 25/2 - Thursday
> 
> Awareness / Flowers
> 
> Catch me being sad about Lydia saying that Sasha was closest to opening up to Wilde over any of the other characters in the S3 Q&A
> 
> (Title from Standing By by Pentatonix)

Everyone knew the stories about flowers. Everyone had a flower tucked away in their soul, and when people around you loved you, it bloomed somewhere in theirs as well. Whenever you were injured, the flowers would rush to the surface of their skin in the same spot, an indication that somewhere out there, someone important to them was hurting. It started as loose petals of course, a small handful of colourful fragments popping out of your skin for a moment before stopping almost immediately. The deeper the affection though, the more extravagant the showing. More petals, then small blooms, then larger ones. Eventually, flowers would bloom from your very skin itself, stems remaining embedded and sprouting in the same spot for anywhere up to a week after the moment of injury.

It was a universal thing, seemingly shared by all sentient beings. From the smallest halfling to the tallest orc, everyone left a trail of petals in their wake.

To tell the honest truth, Oscar Wilde did not like it one bit.

Intellectually, of course, it was fascinating. Everyone had a theory on it but never seemed to be able to fully agree. The flowers were clearly magical, but showed even in anti-magic fields, and researchers couldn’t even seem to give a solid answer as to whether the magic was divine or arcane in nature. Some theorised they were a gift from Aphrodite, as physical proof of love shared between two people. Others believed it to be from Demeter, or Persephone, or even some ancient power older than the gods themselves. Wilde could quite happily carry on a conversation about that side of things for hours.

No, the problem he had was the social aspect.

Walking down the street, it seemed like they were everywhere he looked. Young couples giggling over shared papercuts on opposite thumbs, watching their partner’s digit ooze colourful petals as their own oozed blood. Well-to-do women, touching pendants containing preserved flowers and talking about their “dear, sweet Gregory”. Adverts for petal preservation spells, and jewelry set with blossoms, and tiny jeweled pins or blades designed to draw a single drop of blood to remind your distant loved one that you’re thinking of them. It was everywhere, and sometimes it felt like there was no escaping it.

It all just seemed to rub in the fact that he had never had a flower bloom on his skin that wasn’t from his family. Petals, certainly, he could shed petals until the cows came home, but a full flower? Not since the last of his mother’s hummingbird fuschias faded from his chest a week after her passing.

That’s not to say it was for lack of trying. Sometimes he would find a partner and wonder if this would finally be it, if this would finally be the time. But every time, even as the green petals from their skin grew more plentiful and sometimes even flowered, his own remained stubbornly stagnant. There were nights when he would stare at his skin and just wait, hoping for a few more petals than his soul seemed willing to produce and thinking about how much he cared about his partner like a mantra, but nothing ever seemed to help.

By the time he began working for the meritocrats, he’d stopped trying altogether. Why bother when it only ever led to more pain. So he took lovers and left them in the morning and focused on his work to push all thoughts of flowers from his mind.

-

The first time he realised that he might have a soft spot for the mercenaries he was meant to be handling, Wilde was reasonably sure he was in the worst state of his life. It was the morning after everything went to hell in Paris, and he’d crawled into an abandoned basement to sleep after spending much of the night desperately fleeing without any magic to fall back on. Frankly, it was a miracle that he had survived and he was certain he looked like it.

Getting to his feet he gave a long stretch, brushing the worst of the dust off of his clothes and using his replenished magic to try to reach the point of “slightly presentable”. It wasn’t until he rubbed his eyes and looked around that he realised there was a scattering of petals on the floor. Wilde froze, staring straight at them.

The petals weren’t familiar, nothing belonging to some sort of old acquaintance or forgotten friend. They were narrow, almost sharp really, and a piercing white colour against the stone of the basement. They felt fragile in his hands as he picked them up and wondered at them. For a moment he was curious, but then he remembered someone equally sharp and pale, gripping his hand unexpectedly earnestly, a spark in her eyes as she enthused about his magic.

Wilde sighed internally. Was he really so pathetic that one act of kindness had him shedding petals all over the floor?

The petals were slipped into his pocket as he left the basement. He may not have worshiped them the way that the rest of society seemed to, but it still didn’t seem right to leave a piece of Sasha’s soul on the dusty ground.

-

Sasha’s petals didn’t stop. He found the Rangers (now L.O.L.O.M.G.) again at Prague University and she looked visibly ill. Wilde didn’t say anything and tried not to send her any concerned looks. Her health was none of his business and he wouldn’t go butting in and demanding information that she hadn’t offered. That didn’t stop him worrying about her of course. Purely professionally.

It was, of course, also purely professional when he wrote to Apophis himself on her behalf. When he used words like “indispensable”, he wasn’t thinking about the ever increasing number of white petals he woke up blanketed in every morning. He wasn’t thinking of knife-sharp eyes and all her scars and the way she always seemed so resigned to the worst possible outcome when he wrote “singular talent”. If he was being perfectly honest with himself though, there was just...something familiar in her. A kind of camaraderie that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. For some reason, as he wrote a letter that was ultimately little more than a politely worded plea for the life of his colleague - his friend - all he could think of was a quote that he had read somewhere and if this was how it felt.

Whatever souls are made of, his and hers were the same.

-

After Cairo, things only seemed to get worse. Things were accelerating completely out of control, and Wilde couldn’t help but feel like he was trying to hold back a tsunami with a small bucket. Something big was coming, he knew it, and he could already tell that they were nowhere near being prepared for it. Working gave him a sense of control, so he threw himself into it, desperately trying to make his way through the ocean of papers that had been unceremoniously dropped in his lap. There had to be a solution somewhere, it was just a matter of finding it. It wasn’t uncommon to find him in his office late into the night, searching for some hint that there was a way to fix whatever was coming, because gods knew that there didn’t seem to be a way to stop it.

He didn’t even notice the curse until the third night.

Wilde was fine. That was what he told the others anyway. Perhaps the fireworks were a bit too much, but the prying questions were a bit too much. He was certainly not thinking about the matching halos of ruffled green petals caught in both Sasha and Hamid’s hair. Instead, he just focused on the breakfast he’d shared with someone he no longer hesitated to call a friend. Rations cooked by the residual heat of dragon fire may not have been the most sophisticated meal he’d ever eaten, but it was certainly one to remember. Who else could say that they’d done that?

When he left, Sasha’s awkward jokes and laughter ringing in his ears, he didn’t realise that was the last time he’d ever see her.

-

When Wilde woke up with a jolt for the seventh time in an hour, he couldn’t stop himself from crying. The simulacra were further along than anyone had realised, he couldn’t trust his resources, he had an ocean of work to do and now he couldn’t even rest. He was so tired, all he wanted to do was sleep, but every time it was the same thing. A moment of darkness, a horrifying flash of something, and then he jolted awake feeling worse than ever with seemingly no time whatsoever having passed.

With a deep breath, he tried to pull himself together, waving his hand to light up the room. If he had to be awake, he may as well get some work done. Moving to get up, he pushed the covers back, before he glanced down and froze.

All he could see were petals.

Every part of him that wasn’t covered was completely invisible for the thick blanket of them, sharp and white or curled and purple or round and pink. His friends were in danger. A lot of danger.

His friends were in danger and he couldn’t even help them.

Somehow he kept breathing. Maybe it was more like gasping for air, but he somehow hadn’t fallen apart at the seams entirely. After a long moment he had pulled himself together to get away from the situation, step out for some air or something of the sort. Staggering to his feet, he brushed away at the petals. The pink and purple fell away easily enough, but the white seemed to stubbornly stick to his skin. Wilde’s heart dropped out of his stomach as he finally broke down. They weren’t brushing away. They weren’t brushing away, and they weren’t individual petals.

-

Sasha’s flowers only bloomed on him a handful of times before she was gone, and only within those days he spent in Damascus. Sometimes, further down the line, he wondered if Grizzop’s concern over finding him unconscious was just concern for him, or if it had more to do with the matching patch of moonflowers growing out of the sides of their heads.

They had to remove the flowers when they were checking him for injuries, and that was far more personal than shaving his hair could ever have been. Wilde had wanted to do it himself but he couldn’t even hold a pen steady, delicately removing the stems woven through his hair or across his torso wasn’t really an option.

Grizzop had pushed him into a chair, taken out a small blade, and begun to methodically cut at the blooms as the other cleric started on his hair. Each one that was carefully removed was placed in his hands without a word. It was a callous and functional thing, no pomp or circumstance, but it wasn’t cruel. The two of them had never seen eye-to-eye on just about anything, but there were some lines you simply didn’t cross. That was how he liked to remember Grizzop, though he was sure the goblin wouldn’t appreciate it. Calm and focused, driven as ever without compromising his morals.

None of that was on Wilde’s mind at the time, but going without sleep for the better part of a week will do that to a man. Instead, he just stared at the flowers in his hands and let his mind slip away for a moment.

-

Time had passed since then. Some for the worse, some for the better. His skin now shed petals of half a dozen different colours, pink and purple after 18 months without them, but others too. Large, tapered yellow petals slipped from his fingers and thumbs as Cel worked on their potions. Tiny white petals fell out the end of his sleeve when someone hit Carter in the arm a bit too hard. A trail of thin, spiky indigo petals meant that Barnes had got himself hurt.

And of course, he almost always had tiny blue flowers growing on him because a certain dwarf kept insisting that he could handle anything.

With time, he had grown to appreciate the presence of the flowers. As it turns out, having an indication of when the people you care about are injured can be helpful. As it also turns out, having reminders that the people you care about are still there even when you can’t see them does have its own certain level of appeal.

Wilde sat on the edge of his bed, turning a white flower over and over in his hands. It was pure white, sharp white petals surrounding a core of softer, smoother ones. Getting it preserved was the last thing that he’d done before leaving Damascus and while he’d worried in the moment about buying into the craze, he was glad that he’d done it. It wasn’t the same as having her there, but it soothed the ache a little.

“She kept some of your petals, you know.” Wilde jumped as Zolf’s voice came from the door. He was leaning against the doorframe, his expression somehow mournful and fond at the same time.

“What?” Ineloquent as it was, it was all he could choke out against the emotions.

“Yeah. She liked to act tough, but she got attached quicker than you’d think. When you got, you know, taken out of commission in Paris, caught her pulling green petals out of her mouth. Still had them when I left. Don’t know if she kept them ‘til the end, but...yeah.” Wilde looked back at the flower in his hands, still pristine almost two years on.

“...I’m glad she got to live a good life.” And he was, he really was, but…

“Doesn’t stop us from missing her.” Zolf was sitting next to him now, a hand on his shoulder as Wilde heaved a sigh and let the grief past his walls for just a moment.

“No. No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Another deep breath. “I didn’t know her for long, but I’m still glad I got the chance.” Zolf gave him a smile as they both stared at the flower.

“Yeah. Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone wondering who has which flowers:
> 
> Wilde - Green Carnations  
> Sasha - Moonflower  
> Zolf - Forget-me-nots  
> Hamid - Purple Snapdragons  
> Azu - Pink Roses  
> Cel - Daffodils  
> Carter - Yarrow  
> Barnes - Sea Holly


End file.
